For if we are divine and timeless beings now (and who can gainsay it that has had a glimpse of that starry state memorably vouchsafed to him?) then we have always been such. How can we evolve who are already self-existent, perfect beings? Does it not seem more probable that something alien has accreted around us, covering up the sublimer consciousness; that Time's work is not to raise us but to free us; that our search is not for a loftier state but for our pristine state, to recover our former grandeur? What we need is not to grow but to know. Evolution cannot help us, but self-knowledge can.

Source: The Notebooks of Paul Brunton

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